Germany is probably in a technical recession and recent data do not point to any improvement in the near term, quite to the contrary. Given the country’s considerable budget surplus, German business leaders are calling for fiscal stimulus. This echoes Mario Draghi’s plea in favour of budgetary expansion in countries with fiscal space. Simulations show that spillover effects to other eurozone countries would be small. Moreover, the implementation of a fiscal package requires long preparation and may be hampered by labour shortages.
Credit impulse slightly picked up in August 2019 for non-financial corporations (NFCs), while it was nearly unchanged for households. In spite of the slowdown in the euro area GDP in Q2 2019 (+1.1% yoy in 2019 Q2 vs +1,3% in Q1), exceptionally low lending rates have continued to support loans outstanding, which reached +3.4% year-on-year for households, and +4,3% for non-financial corporations.
